My Five Favorite Superhero Cartoons

When people ask me what I want to do for a living, I usually tell them I want to write cartoons. Honestly, I've never been completely sure what I wanted to do when I grew up, but writing cartoons seems as accurate as anything. I always wanted to write stories for some entertainment medium, and there are few things I like better than animation.

There are also few things I like better than superhero stories. Good superhero stories. Preferably stories in which Pa Kent isn't some sociopath who tells young Clark not to save people.

Never letting this one go.

So, obviously I've enjoyed a few superhero cartoons in my lifetime. But, my affection for them is based on more than the principle of "two great tastes that taste great together." Animation seems particularly appropriate for the superhero genre. As characters, superheroes are heavily dependent on visual appeal, which is why they are most popular in comics and film, as opposed to prose. People want to see the heroes in their colorful costumes, not just imagine them. In most cases, superheroes are also expected to display their special powers. With a cartoon, you can show a guy in a multi-colored spandex suit throwing fireballs out of his hands, and a viewer will buy it, since it meshes perfectly with the world.

But, I haven't watched every superhero cartoon that ever existed; I'm not magic. And, I can't say every single one I watched was a masterpiece, but there have been some that I absolutely loved. So, sit back, and let me take you through my top five favorite superhero cartoons in no particular order.

Batman: The Animated Series

Of course, this one is on my list. It's on EVERYONE'S list. But, sometimes things become immensely popular for a reason, and this definitely applies to Batman: TAS.

Bruce Timm's original animated series is much like another beloved cartoon, Samurai Jack, in its approach to storytelling. Rather than building massive, long-running story arcs, these cartoons acted as collections of short films, self-contained stories that you could enjoy without a deep knowledge of the series mythology. The Batman cartoon assumes that you already know the basic gist of the Batman origin story and throws you right into the action of the current episode. With every new film incarnation of a superhero feeling an obligation to retell the origin story, it's refreshing for a show to trust its audience with such knowledge. The series doesn't even start with Batman's origin story; instead, it introduces us to the character of Man-Bat, just another one of Batman's colossal rogues' gallery.

Batman provides a brilliant showcase of voice acting, particularly among its many wonderful villains. Of course, Kevin Conroy's voice is now iconic, the true Batman voice to many a fan. And, while Heath Ledger's grungy performance seems to have monopolized most viewers' visions of the Joker, my favorite incarnation is still the one voiced by Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill. He plays a Joker who is funny when he needs to be, but always a bit unsettling. Another highlight for me is Ron Perlman as Clayface, a villain who I didn't even know that well before watching the show, but who, like many Bat-enemies, is wonderfully developed by the show's masterful writing.

Justice League Unlimited

Another classic from the Timmverse. I haven't watched many episodes of the show, nor do I have a great knowledge of most of its characters, but that's okay. The show has an uncanny ability to introduce characters who you didn't know going into the episode, and by the end of the twenty minutes, you'll have fallen in love with these heroes.

An episode that impressed me with lesser-known heroes was "Hawk and Dove." I just loved the dynamic between these two brothers, one a right-wing firecracker, and the other a leftist pacifist, and how they had to reconcile their differences to save the day, with a little help from Wonder Woman. Another favorite episode is "For the Man Who Has Everything," in which we get a glimpse at the life Kal-El wishes he could have. It's a story that blends exciting action with deep characterization, something which the show accomplishes on a regular basis.

The Spectacular Spider-Man

Okay, I only watched one episode of Ultimate Spider-Man, and maybe it's gotten good since then, but what I saw was basically Family Guy, constantly breaking up the story to present some loosely-connected gag. I didn't want to watch Family Guy; I wanted to watch Spider-Man.

The Spectacular Spider-Man WAS Spider-Man. Premium, grade-A Spider-Man. There seems to be a popular perception that Peter Parker is meant to be in high school, but I don't believe that he necessarily needs to be guarding his lunch money from Flash Thompson for the stories to work. I think it is completely possible to tell a good Spider-Man story outside of high school. That being said, Spectacular Spider-Man did this iconic period of Peter Parker's life as well as any cartoon could. We saw his girl problems mixed with his superhero exploits, and God, were those superhero exploits beautiful! I don't think I've ever seen Spidey's web-slinging animated quite as well as it was in this show. Yeah, the cartoon from the 90s was vomiting comic book continuity all over the animation cels, but the animation was a bit sluggish and unimpressive. With this show, I really felt like I was watching Spider-Man; the animators captured the spirit of the character through his motion and energy.

Spectacular Spider-Man was short-lived, but it shall never be forgotten. Swing on, Spidey.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (The New One)

Okay, so I was very young when I watched the original Ninja Turtles cartoon, and I never really watched the one that premiered on the Fox Box, so if I totally got the best Ninja Turtles series wrong, I'm sorry. Regardless, there is one thing I know for certain, and that is how consistently entertaining the new CGI-animated show on Nickelodeon is.

The tone is primarily light-hearted, since it is broadcast on the "first kids' network," but that doesn't stop the writing from going into some darker territory with its storylines. In one episode, we see Splinter's nightmare of the four turtles being annihilated by the Shredder, and it is played completely straight. The comedy is also often genuinely funny. Some of my favorite parts are the clips of the parody-Star-Trek cartoon that Leonardo watches in the sewer. These segments act as fun little comedy bits which also help to highlight the themes and emotional conflicts of their respective episodes. The second season replaces these segments with a fictional superhero anime, which is also plenty of fun.

When I watched the first trailer for the show, I felt a bit conflicted about the animation style, but having watched the series, I can't imagine it being done any other way. The character designs are spot-on with each turtle having a slightly different build from the others. Clever uses of lighting and anime influences give the show a dynamic style, distinct from any other version of the Turtles.

Tiger & Bunny

Here is a Japanese anime that understands the idealism of superheroes better than any Hollywood film that came out in the last year. Tiger & Bunny is a 25-episode series set in an alternate version of New York City, where superheroes perform acts of heroism for a live television game show, competing to become "King of Heroes." With commercialism taking over the superhero profession, the heroes wear costumes with corporate logos printed on top of them.

Such a premise sounds like it would lead to a scathing critique of the superhero. Yet, while it deconstructs certain elements of the genre, Tiger & Bunny also shows plenty of love for superheroes and reminds us of what they are supposed to do, that being rescuing people. The stand-out of the show is Kotetsu, aka "Wild Tiger." A man past his prime, he is chastised for the amount of property damage he causes in his line of work. But, unlike the Nolan-Goyer-Snyder version of Superman, Kotetsu is always focused on protecting his fellow citizens from harm. The show also uses the superhero genre masterfully to comment on what it means to get older. The second half of the series follows Kotetsu as he tries to decide what direction to take his life in as his superhero edge fades away. Occasionally dipping into darker territory, the show never abandons its overall tone of hopefulness, and it serves as a reminder of why we all loved superheroes in the first place.

....................................................................................

Well, they're they are. My favorite superhero cartoons. What's that? You want to tell me my list is wrong? Okay, fancy-pants. Why don't you go to the comments section and explain why your favorite cartoons are so special? No, seriously, I'd love reader feedback.

The Films I Saw In 2013 Summarized In One Sentence Each

To be honest, I didn't see two of these films until this past week, but they came out in 2013, so I shall stick to the title.

So, 2013 was a... mostly unremarkable year for cinema. There were definitely some gems toward the end, but as hard as I try, and being someone who hasn't made his way through the city's various theaters, I actually haven't tried hard at all, I'm not a hip, indie kid (the most indie film on this list ended up being a rental for me). I was raised by the big-budget blockbusters, and if the summer season doesn't produce one masterpiece, then my whole view of the year is affected for the slightly more negative.

So, what follows is my views on the movies I saw this year, summarized as concisely as possible. Keep in mind that I didn't see every movie that came out this year; I never do. But, I saw some of them. If anyone's interested in having me go more-in-depth with any of these films, feel free to mention it in the comments. I had begun to write a more through run-down of the year's superhero films, which I can still finish if people are interested. But for now, sit back, pop some popcorn (or not; isn't popcorn a little over the top for an article that will take five seconds to read?). And, enjoy my take on the films of 2013!

Oz the Great and Powerful

It's basically a dumber X-Men: First Class if you mix Mystique's skin tone with the color yellow.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

It failed to live up to my expectations from the first film, and, oh crap, did I just admit to liking the first G.I. Joe movie?

Iron Man 3

Ben Kingsley's autobiographical film masquerades as another Iron Man movie.

Mud

I thought it was good, but I can't say I agree with the critical consensus that it was Jesus shitting gold upon a piece of celluloid; it was probably shot on digital.

Star Trek Into Darkness

COOOOONNNN-trary to many fanboys, I thought this film's pros outweighed its COOOOOONNNNNNSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Man of Steel

Fuck you, Pa Kent.

Monsters University

If that image doesn't tug at your heartstrings, tell grandpa Satan I said "hi."

Grown Ups 2

I was debating whether this list should include movies that I saw in my nightmares.

Pacific Rim

I've looked the film's cast up on both Wikipedia and IMDB, and I still don't know who played Gendo Ikari.

The World's End

My sister scolded me for taking the family to see this movie, but I was glad to finally get my revenge for that time she took us to see The Proposal.

The Wolverine

I like to imagine that Jackman's friendly-guy persona is just a role he takes on for the press, and that he's  actually playing himself in these X-Men movies.

Elysium

Speak into that megaphone; I can't hear your political statement!

Kick-Ass 2

This film was condemned by the best part of this film.

Rush

I absolutely loved the new Thor movie!

Thor: The Dark World

Never mind.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

I will now be picking fights with tween fangirls over the opening night seats for the next film.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

I still don't think this needed to be three epic-length films, but... dragon.

American Hustle

Who knew this guy would work so well with that guy?

Frozen

BEST X-MEN MOVIE EVER!!!!!!!!!

....

Okay, so that wasn't the most in-depth analysis of the year in film that you'll find on the internet. Also, it has little to do with comics, so why is it on a blog called "KAS Reads Comics?" Well, I thought I'd try to lure a few extra readers in by talking about a medium that people in the English-speaking world still pay attention to. Selling out on the fourth blog post: isn't that special? Some of the movies are based on comic books, and two of the others are X-Men films according to myself, so get out of my face.

Have a fantastic evening, and may 2014 bring a wonderful batch of new films!

Go Read Dragon Ball, You Doofus!

I'm always amazed to discover people my age who didn't watch Dragon Ball Z in their childhood. Son Goku was such a big part of my pre-pubescent life that, to me, the existence of individuals in my age group who don't know his adventures is unfathomable. Yet, when I take a moment to look back, I realize this shouldn't surprise me so much. Yes, Dragon Ball Z was a series that introduced many Americans to Japanese animation. Yes, it remains one of the most iconic animes to this very day. But DBZ wasn't Pokemon. If you had recess with my younger self, you watched Pokemon; no exceptions, unless you came from some weird, super-hippie-dippie family that didn't watch TV.

If you're my age, you might've watched Dragon Ball Z; in fact, the odds of you having watched the series aren't terrible. I had plenty of friends in elementary school who watched the show, and to this day, I know plenty of people in my age group who watched DBZ. But, I know plenty more who didn't. In fact, I think I was below the mean age of people watching the show at the time it was on. Hell, my cousin was in college back then, and he videotaped every episode.

Nobody will know what these are when I die.

Dragon Ball Z was the epitome of that show which your parents didn't want you to watch, but which you couldn't resist viewing anyway. It was a show about guys beating one another up. Bones were broken, blood was spilled (although digitally reduced in the English dub), and at no point did the show attempt to teach the kid how to read or do math. And, I loved it.

Yet, there was at least one youth my age who rejected this meaningless violence. I got into DBZ in the summer between first and second grade. When I entered the second grade, there were... a couple kids in my class who watched the show (again, I shouldn't be surprised to meet peers who never saw DBZ). But, a certain classmate tried to convince me that I shouldn't be watching Son Goku's adventures. He told me that Dragon Ball Z was too violent, that it was sending a bad message to children. Of course, I ignored him, since 1) Dragon Ball Z was awesome, and I wasn't gonna stop watching it, and 2) holy shit, dude! You're eight years old, and you're already talking like some conservative-Christian-child-protection advocate. Get that crayon out of your SpongeBob-underpants-wearing ass!

But, in fairness to that classmate, who hopefully doesn't remember the preceding anecdote and who probably won't read this because he never got into Dragon Ball, and also because he became interested in important things like sports and social life rather than reviewing comics for some blog that nobody reads, DBZ did have flaws. Those fight scenes tended to drag on more than they needed to, and the show had a taste for the overly dramatic.

24 Episodes.

These qualities stood in direct contrast to another series, one less known to western audiences than the adventures of adult Goku and his son, Gohan, but without which DBZ could not exist. I'm talking about the original Dragon Ball. The one without the Z.

Dragon Ball never achieved the popularity that its sequel series did in the United States. Every night Toonami showed an episode of the Z, and that's the part people would sit down and and watch. Then, they'd show the cartoon with kid Goku, and I think fewer individuals watched that show. But, I watched it. I had fun with the show, even if it wasn't the earth-shaking epic that Dragon Ball Z was. It was more light-hearted; the tone was more comedic fantasy than serious sci-fi. And deep down, there may have been a part of me that preferred the child Goku to his 'roided-up adult form.

The Japanese version of the Dragon Ball manga drew know distinctions between Z and no-Z. Every volume of manga that Akira Toriyama drew, featuring the stories of Son Goku and his friends and family, was called "Dragon Ball" (well, technically the Japanese translation of those words, but I don't think I needed to tell you that). It wasn't until the anime that the producers decided to start calling the section of Goku's life following his son's birth Dragon Ball Z.

So, the anime of DBZ became a hit in the States, and DB became, well, not as much of a hit. What did Viz do when they released the manga in Uncle Sam's country for the first time? They split up the comics in the same way that the Japanese producers divided the animation. This allowed the legions of American fanboys biased towards DBZ to skip through the early manga and head straight to when Goku's dickhead brother came down to Earth, and everything after that. Viz started releasing these volumes in the year 2000 and continued to release the two versions of Dragon Ball separately for over a decade.

When Viz started releasing Akira Toriyama's classic saga in the U.S. over ten years ago, they worried that DBZ fans would be confused to see the stories of that anime packaged together with the adventures of the child Goku. Come 2013, Viz is more aware of who their audience is. The publisher realizes the U.S. fans of anime and manga are very analytical about their pop culture obsessions. Any 'otaku' deeply invested in Dragon Ball and/or Dragon Ball Z has probably already done the research to inform them that the two manga series are really one. So, Viz decided to rerelease the manga in a series of 3-in-1 omnibuses (3 volumes per omnibus). In these tomes, Viz is releasing the entire Son Goku saga as one 42-volume series, just as it was in Japan. As of last month, three of these omnibuses are on the book shelves. Having read each of these books, I realize how much I still love the journey of that little kung-fu guy with a monkey tail.

Why does Dragon Ball still hold up three decades after Akira Toriyama started drawing the series in Japan? Why do I still enjoy it years after my family hoped I would've outgrown it? Well, honestly, it's just fun. Toriyama created a perfect mix of high-flying martial arts action and charming, cartoonish comedy. The characters are funny and imaginative, from an ancient, perverted martial arts master to an evil commander who builds a huge military force for the sake of making himself taller. And, Toriyama is brilliant at drawing this world. His dynamic, cartoonish style complements the tone of the story perfectly. The designs of beasts like Shenlong the dragon and Goku's giant ape form show why Toriyama built a second career out of creating art for role-playing games like Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger.

Mega Rayquaza

The early volumes of Dragon Ball never take themselves too seriously, yet the action is still a total thrill to read. Every punch and kick that Goku and his opponents unleashes is drawn beautifully. Viewing Toriyama's succession of panels, I felt like I was watching the fights and not just snapshots of those battles. From the first nine volumes of the series, two action sequences really stand out to me.

The first sequence of note occurs in the fourth and fifth volumes, featured in the second omnibus. It is the battle between young Son Goku, and the enigmatic martial artist, Jackie Chun, a man whose beard looks a bit too similar to that of Goku's mentor, Master Roshi. I previously mentioned one of DBZ's flaws as its tendency to drag out the battles too long. The battle between Goku and Jackie Chun goes on for about 100 pages, and yet, I was entertained all the way through. Toriyama knows that he is dragging out the fight, and he creates comedy through the goofy ways he drags out the conflict. The battle comes across as a parody of the drawn-out battles that would later define the series, as well as the many creations that were heavily inspired by DBZ. It's intense. It's ridiculous, and it's one of the best times you'll have reading comics.

I don't actually think this is a terrible disguise.

Another highlight comes in the eighth volume, the middle of the most recent omnibus; it's Goku's one-man assault on the Red Ribbon Army HQ. Here, Toriyama really puts his artistic pedal to the metal. The Red Ribbon HQ is full of highly-detailed buildings which dwarf the young Goku; it is an environment much more exciting than the blank fields we typically associate with DBZ. The artist plays with dynamic visual angles  and his typical eye for clever panel-editing to create a jaw-dropping battle between a pint-sized martial artist and a mighty military force that's just not strong enough for the little guy with the spiky hair.

There are so many parts of this most recent omnibus that make the book entertaining: the comically brutal assassin, Taopaipai, Goku's interaction with the wise cat, Karin. I could write a whole book about why Dragon Ball is awesome. But, you've already read enough of my rambling. Go out and get Dragon Ball for yourself. Read it. Love it. Become obsessed with it. If you find yourself disappointed... I guess we can still be friends?

Bring up this movie, and you are dead to me.

Dragon Ball (everything so far) gets an A+ from this nerd.